The UN estimates that 2.1 million Indian children die before reaching the age of 5 every year –four every minute - mostly from preventable illnesses such as diarrhoea, typhoid, malaria, measles and pneumonia. Every day, 1,000 Indian children die because of diarrhoea alone.

The paper presents a new composite indicator – the Poverty and Hunger Index (PHI) – to measure countries' performance towards achieving MDG1 on halving poverty and hunger by 2015. The PHI combines all five official MDG1 indicators, including a) the proportion of population living on less than US$ 1/day, b) poverty gap ratio, c) share of the poorest quintile in national income or consumption, d) prevalence of underweight in children under five years of age, and d) the proportion of population undernourished.

Data for the five MDG1 indicators are compiled for the 81 countries which together account for 90 percent of the world poverty and 85 percent of global undernourishment. The analysis shows a weak correlation between undernourishment and child underweight; this is in line with a growing body of evidence documenting that reducing income poverty or improving the food supply without changing the way young children are fed and cared for does little to reduce levels of undernutrition among children.

India: In a context of unprecedented economic growth (9-10 percent annually) and national food security, over 60 percent of Indian children are wasted, stunted, underweight or a combination of the above. As a result, India ranks number 62 in the PHI out of a total of 81 countries and is included among the low performing countries in progress towards MDG1 with countries such as Nepal (number 58), Ethiopia (number 60), or Zimbabwe (number 74).

Status of Malnourishment in Maharashtra, India

14.6% of children under three years in Maharashtra are acutely malnourished (wasted). This means that they have a 5-20 times higher risk of dying from common diseases like diarrhoea or pneumonia than normally nourished children. The World Health Organization considers 10% a threshold for serious concern and 15% a critical situation!